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Albert "Amtrak Al" Mladineo, left, and A to Z Travel owner Jim Roszak are both enthusiastic train travelers. Mladineo, formerly of Orange, is credited with helping to bring an Amtrak station to Cleveland. Roszak of Parma is conducting the train tours these days.
(LINDA KINSEY/NORTHEAST OHIO MEDIA GROUP)

When it's pitch black in the middle of nowhere, you look up and it's as though someone has thrown confetti in the sky

Jim Roszak of Parma holds one of the puzzles his father put together. The picture is of a training traveling along tracks. Roszak is owner of A to Z Travel in Parma Heights.LINDA KINSEY/NORTHEAST OHIO MEDIA GROUP

Trains, planes and automobiles. They all have their place, but Jim Roszak says that without the efforts of Albert "Amtrak Al" Mladineo, train travel would be a lot less convenient for local travelers.

The owner of A to Z Travel in Parma Heights since 1992, Roszak has been working with Mladineo for the last 11 years in the promotion and selling of passenger rail travel. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Mladineo's efforts.

In the 1970s, when Mladineo was working as a substitute civics teacher - when he wasn't on duty as a Cleveland firefighter - he learned that Amtrak was developing routes, including one from New York to Chicago called the Lake Shore Limited. With Cleveland right in the middle, an Amtrak station in Cleveland seemed like a natural, he said.

As a way of getting Amtrak's attention, he decided to start a petition drive at his school. "It was kind of a lark," he says, chuckling.

What happened next was a surprise to many, including Mladineo. The Greater Cleveland Growth Association jumped in on the effort and started a "legal and legitimate" petition drive. "In a short period of time, we got 40,000 signatures," he says.

With the petitions and the editorial support of the Plain Dealer and WEWS-TV, Amtrak eventually made the decision to extend its rail service to Cleveland.

Finally, the inauguration of the new Cleveland train station was planned. But Mladineo was disappointed with the turnout. "We got about 500 people, which was a disgrace, really," he says.

And although he was the key player in getting the Amtrak stop in Cleveland, he was not asked to speak at the ceremony. Then, Mladineo recalls, someone started yelling, "'Where's Al? Where's Al?'" He walked up to the speakers' platform and stretched out his arms and gave one of the shortest speeches on record: "Cleveland, this is our train."

And while Cleveland had a new train station, Mladineo, a former longtime Orange resident, had a new career – this time as a travel agent, putting together train tours. It seemed like a natural fit, he says, and soon he was clobbering the competition, ranking number one in the state for sales.

Now that Mladineo is getting on in years – he'll be 89 on July 31 – he can no longer escort rail-travel groups. Roszak does that now. And like "Amtrak Al," he takes groups to destinations such as New Orleans, Glacier Park in Montana; Reno, Nev.; and San Francisco.

Roszak says trains offer a special allure: "You've got to experience it to really understand it," he says. Security, although present, is not as intrusive as air travel. "There are no X-ray machines. And it's relaxing."

Nighttime offers rail travelers a special opportunity to see the stars, he says. "When it's pitch black in the middle of nowhere, you look up and it's as though someone has thrown confetti in the sky."

Roszak, a lifelong Parma area resident, concedes traveling by train is not for everyone, however relaxing it might be.

For starters, he says, trains are prone to delays due to weather, including heat, which causes the rails to bow, and freight trains that are given priority.

And in a busman's-holiday fashion, he enjoys volunteering for the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway, where for the last 10 years he has served as a trainman on the Polar Express.

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